FRANCE 2000: NORMANDY

 December 22, 2000

Our daughter had spent a semester in France as an exchange student with her university, and we were excited to finally get to share in the experience with her. Bob was particularly excited about French cuisine.

Here is our twelve-year-old's vision of the Eiffel Tower, the Champs Elysee, and the Louvre prior to the trip:

After crossing the border from Germany into France, we made our way to the beaches of Normandy on the western edge of France on the Atlantic Ocean.

Our first stop was the American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach where 9,386 American soldiers are buried. It was a moving, sobering experience to see the crosses standing at attention in regimental uniformity.

It is one of those places that requires a measure of solemnity.

Well, for most of us, anyway.

Next stop: Pointe du Hoc, a cliff overlooking the English Channel where the German army built bunkers and artillery posts. The Pointe was taken by U.S. Rangers who scaled the cliffs, sustaining major casualties in the process.

The thing I remember most about our stop here is that there was a group of French teenage girls who were trying to flirt with our good-looking 15-year-old son. He was oblivious, but the rest of us were sure getting a kick out of it.

These are not rolling hills; they are craters created by bombs.

I wrote in our scrapbook that Pointe du Hoc was another of Bob's favorite stops.

Spirals of barbed wire remain--or have been replaced or added--to create the feel of 1944.

It was so moving to be in this historical spot, a place where the world was changed.